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Bitcoin => Bitcoin Technical Support => Topic started by: Spekulatius on May 13, 2012, 10:53:37 AM



Title: How to receive transactions to old addresses after deleting wallet.dat?
Post by: Spekulatius on May 13, 2012, 10:53:37 AM
Hi,

I recently deleted my old encrypted (near empty) wallet.dat and restarted the standard client. No I dont see my previously created receiving addresses anymore, but expect payments to some of those. I still have them written down somewhere else, so I know them but cant figure out how to "get them into my client".
Does anybody know how to receive payments to those "lost" addresses?
Thx

-EDIT-
I still have the deleted wallet.dat available in my recycle bin


Title: Re: How to receive transactions to old addresses after deleting wallet.dat?
Post by: FreeMoney on May 13, 2012, 10:57:44 AM
If you could do it without your wallet file then so could anyone. If you find those addresses somewhere don't have funds sent, you won't be able to spend the coin without the corresponding wallet.

If you didn't permanently delete it then put it back.


Title: Re: How to receive transactions to old addresses after deleting wallet.dat?
Post by: Spekulatius on May 13, 2012, 11:02:17 AM
yeah, but I dont want my wallet to prompt me to enter my passphrase every time I send money somewhere (and playing on SatoshiDICE means A LOT of times!).


Title: Re: How to receive transactions to old addresses after deleting wallet.dat?
Post by: Raoul Duke on May 13, 2012, 11:07:35 AM
I told you how here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=81532.msg897778#msg897778

This migh also be of help: http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/3530/how-to-import-a-private-key-to-an-encrypted-wallet-on-standard-client <-- these instructions work both ways, I guess.


Title: Re: How to receive transactions to old addresses after deleting wallet.dat?
Post by: JoelKatz on May 13, 2012, 11:16:25 AM
I sincerely hope you kept a copy of the wallet. Otherwise, any funds that get deposited in those accounts will be lost forever. Without the private keys from the wallet, there is no way to recover the funds deposited in the account.


Title: Re: How to receive transactions to old addresses after deleting wallet.dat?
Post by: Raoul Duke on May 13, 2012, 11:19:52 AM
I sincerely hope you kept a copy of the wallet. Otherwise, any funds that get deposited in those accounts will be lost forever. Without the private keys from the wallet, there is no way to recover the funds deposited in the account.

I didn't even wanted to think about the possibility that he completely deleted the wallet.dat... I mean, that would be a pretty stupid thing to do lol Especially because he said he expects payments to some of the addresses.


Title: Re: How to receive transactions to old addresses after deleting wallet.dat?
Post by: Stephen Gornick on May 13, 2012, 07:38:13 PM
I told you how here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=81532.msg897778#msg897778

Unfortunately neither your instructions nor the ones Spekulatius followed mentioned "make a back up copy of your wallet".  To us techies, that's something we know to do already (and often).  In trying to help, we should consider a promise that is part of the hippocratic oath ... Primum non nocere (First, do no harm):
 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primum_non_nocere


Title: Re: How to receive transactions to old addresses after deleting wallet.dat?
Post by: Spekulatius on May 13, 2012, 07:39:47 PM

-EDIT-
I still have the deleted wallet.dat available in my recycle bin


  8)


Title: Re: How to receive transactions to old addresses after deleting wallet.dat?
Post by: Raoul Duke on May 13, 2012, 07:47:18 PM
I told you how here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=81532.msg897778#msg897778

Unfortunately neither your instructions nor the ones Spekulatius followed mentioned "make a back up copy of your wallet".  To us techies, that's something we know to do already (and often).  In trying to help, we should consider a promise that is part of the hippocratic oath ... Primum non nocere (First, do no harm):
 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primum_non_nocere

eh! Never thought about backup. After all if you have the private keys... But yeah, backups are essential ;)


Title: Re: How to receive transactions to old addresses after deleting wallet.dat?
Post by: Stephen Gornick on May 13, 2012, 08:04:41 PM

-EDIT-
I still have the deleted wallet.dat available in my recycle bin



  \O/

Pheww!!

So, first step here: make a backup copy of both wallets  (saved with separate names to ensure they are identifiable, e.g., wallet-encrypted.dat  wallet-unencrypted.dat )

If you would prefer not to deal with the technical steps of exporting and then importing keys, simply just use your wallet-encrypted.dat when you receive funds at an old address, but use the unencrypted wallet for everything else.

And change any payout addresses to use an address from the new wallet.